Mother of Shadows
by Emmy Kay
Summary: Yoshino Nara is no big-eyed doe to be scared off with a small noise.


Title: Mother of Shadows

Claimer/Author: This story is written by and belongs to Emmy Kay.

Pairing: Yoshino Nara, Shikaku Nara

Words: ~700

Summary: Yoshino Nara is no big-eyed doe to be scared off with a small noise. Shikaku can vouch for that.

Disclaimer: Naruto and all affiliated characters belong to Kishimoto Masashi. This story is written without permission and for personal/fan/nonprofit entertainment purposes only.

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><p>Children are playing outside, running, jumping, yelling. Shikaku Nara watches from the shadows. His son is among them. Their legs flash between light and dark as they dart among the dappled spaces between the trees. They remind him of young deer.<p>

But Yoshino Nara is no big-eyed doe to be scared off with a small noise. Shikaku grins at the very idea. (He once had the opportunity to speak to her jounin-sensei. Sensei said that Yoshino never fails a mission once she puts her heart into it. Just don't make her mad, Sensei cautioned, or else she'll never let you forget it.)

Shikaku knows his son finds his mother hard to understand. In the quick reasoning of the smart and lazy, Shikamaru has dismissed his mother as 'troublesome.' He hopes that will change. _You take your mother at face value at your own risk, boy. _

Yoshino Nara is housewife, mother, and self-proclaimed kage of mop, broom, and sink. She is also a chuunin-level kunoichi, trained in all manner of the deadly arts. (Shikaku has checked the number and level of missions she has completed, the places she has gone, and the people she has wounded/maimed/killed in the line of duty. It is a good, solid number, enough to make him secure when he leaves on missions.)

She is not well-suited to stay at home. Yoshino chafes at the restraints of her position. (Shikaku can sometimes see the thoughts flashing across her face; _Don't kill the kid harassing my baby, _and _Keep fingers away from weapons around in-laws,_ as a sweet voice, varying from saccharine to poisonous, emerges from her lips.) Yet she perseveres through the daily drudgery of cooking, cleaning, washing, mending, gardening, shopping, childcare, eldercare, clan politics, and village politics. Day after day, she toils at things she had never had any reason to believe that she would be expected to do.

But she does it. Her love is as tenacious and durable as her voice is sharp.

Everything she has done; abandoning her team, giving up her dream of becoming a jounin, managing hard relations with in-laws who considered her lineage unworthy of marriage to their clan head, surviving a difficult pregnancy and subsequent infertility - she has done because of love.

He can still see the softness in her face when she first looked upon Shikamaru. The astonishment that they could create this miracle baby together. Then, the strength and endurance it took to wake up day after day to a colicky, underweight infant and still touch that child with gentleness.

Shikaku is incredibly grateful. Both to Yoshino and whatever gods brought her to his attention. (He knows that he himself is responsible for getting her to marry him, through schemes unfair and manipulative. He is, after all, a ninja. And he is selfishly glad. Even if the joke is really on him, because he loves this most troublesome of women more than he can say.)

He feels some guilt. He can't be there every day. Sometimes, he is unavailable for months at a time. That is the life of someone married to a shinobi - regardless of whatever money and prestige spousal rank may account for. There are still the tense silences, the long and empty nights, the constant fear. Yet he is confident each time he leaves that everything will be as it should be when he returns.

Shikaku Nara watches out for the children, but knows Yoshino is always there, taking on the daily drudgery, weapons just out of sight, ready to do what is needed.

Because in accepting him, in taking his name, in bearing his son, Yoshino has taken on the mission of her life. And she never fails when she puts her heart into it.

:

_There's a reason why women who marry Nara men are called keepers of shadows._


End file.
